Dzongkha

Dzongkha (རྫོང་ཁ་) is a Tibeto-Burman language from the Tibetic family, spoken mainly by the people of Bhutan. It holds the status of both official and national language in the country. In formal settings, it is written with the Tibetan script, while informal writing uses a cursive form of the Tibetan script, but not a separate script called Joyig. The name itself comes from *dzong*, meaning "fortress," and *kha*, meaning "language," so it translates to "the language of the fortress."

Classified as a South Tibetic language, Dzongkha is closely linked to Laya and Lunana, and shares partial intelligibility with Sikkimese. It also has connections to other Bhutanese languages like Chochangachakha, Brokpa, Brokkat, and Lakha. Its relationship with Standard Tibetan is more distant. Spoken Dzongkha and Tibetan are about 30% to 50% mutually intelligible, though both literary forms are heavily shaped by Classical Tibetan—known in Bhutan as Chöke—which Buddhist monks have used for centuries. Chöke was the language of education in Bhutan until the early 1960s, when Dzongkha replaced it in public schools.

Dzongkha descends from Old Tibetan via a separate branch of Tibetic languages, not directly from Classical Tibetan; Classical Tibetan is a literary register that influenced it, not its direct ancestor. Its sound changes are irregular, making the official spelling and standard pronunciation more divergent than in Standard Tibetan. As one description puts it, "traditional orthography and modern phonology are two distinct systems operating by a distinct set of rules."

As a native tongue, Dzongkha and its dialects are spoken across eight western districts of Bhutan: Wangdue Phodrang, Punakha, Thimphu, Gasa, Paro, Ha, Dagana, and Chukha. There are also native speakers near Kalimpong in India, and in Sikkim. Declared the national language in 1961, Dzongkha is mandatory in all Bhutanese schools and serves as the lingua franca in southern and eastern districts where it is not the mother tongue. The Bhutanese films *Travellers and Magicians* (2003) and *Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom* (2019) are both in Dzongkha.

Phonologically, Dzongkha is tonal, with two register tones—high and low. The tone of a syllable affects the onset consonant and the phonation type of the vowel. All consonants can begin a syllable. In low-tone syllables, onset consonants are voiced, while aspirated